Ali was an award-winning pioneer of animated political caricatures and Pakistan’s first court artist.
Published On 9 Nov 2026
Shujaat Ali, cartoonist and founding member of Al Jazeera’s online teams, has died at the age of 54.
A pioneer of digital cartoons, Ali was credited with creating the first animated caricatures online. He also worked at a number of media outlets in his native Pakistan and abroad, receiving several awards for his work.
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He died last week after suffering a heart attack as he returned home from work. He was buried in Qasimabad in Rawalpindi, where his parents are also buried.
Ali was Pakistan’s first court artist, documenting the course of a number of well-known cases using his pencil and skills.
He had recently been working with the Pakistan Air Force, his son-in-law, Waqar Saeed, told the Dawn newspaper.
Before returning to his homeland, he had worked at Al Jazeera for many years. He contributed as part of the founding team of Al Jazeera Arabic’s online services, developing cartooning to utilise the potential of the digital platform.
Ahmed El Amraoui, an editor at Aljazeera.com, said, “I had the privilege of working with Shujaat during the early days of Aljazeera.com. He was a very talented artist, but what made him stand out was how far ahead of his time he was.”
Awad Joumaa, manager of Digital Programs at Al Jazeera English, described Ali’s cartoons as “unlike anything we were used to seeing in a news organisation… He drew everyone from Arafat to George Bush to Osama bin Laden.
“I remember the pride in his voice when he told me that presidents, prime ministers and rebel fighters passing through the newsroom would always stop to look at the wall where his cartoons hung,” Joumaa said.
“We forget there is a whole tradition in journalism where a cartoon could make governments and world leaders shake. Naji al-Ali, the Palestinian cartoonist, was killed for his cartoons. That is how powerful they were. And Shujaat was an incredible voice in that genre.”
